Five sentenced for Zetas gun-buying

Updated 10:21 pm, Thursday, April 4, 2013

Several members of a ring that was obtaining assault weapons for the Zetas were sentenced Thursday, including ringleader Jimmy H. “El Gallo” Torres, who got 15 years in federal prison.

Torres, 27, admitted to recruiting several straw buyers to get him assault-style weapons in San Antonio that he then provided to the cartel. But his lawyer told U.S. District Judge Orlando Garcia that Torres acted under pressure.

“Mr. Torres had been a low-level marijuana dealer here,” assistant federal public defender Clark Adams said. “He was told in his hometown in Mexico, 'We know your family. You are going to get us guns.'”

A 33-count indictment initially charged 21 people and accused them mostly of lying on federal firearms forms by claiming they were buying guns for themselves. The group bought nearly 40 AK-47 rifles.

Court records said the guns were given to Torres, who told at least one member of his cell that the guns were for the Zetas.

Records describe Torres as a “facilitator” for the cartel, whose members have easily gotten around U.S. laws forbidding foreigners or people charged with certain crimes from possessing guns.

Torres' group recruited “straw buyers, ” U.S. citizens with no criminal backgrounds, to buy guns. The recruits included grandmothers, single mothers and even a stripper. Most of them previously got sentences of probation to five years in prison.

The weapons were bought at gun stores and pawn shops in the San Antonio area in December 2011 and January 2012 by Torres' group. Some of the guns were bought on the same day, as Torres accompanied some buyers to the stores. Straw purchasers were paid $150 to $300 per weapon, court records said.